This year packs quite the punch with Halo stories, first of which was Halo: New Blood. At SDCC, we had the opportunity to talk to Matt Forbeck, author of the novella and ask him about his first time experience writing for the Halo franchise. He explains some of the reasons behind his writing process including how Halo 3: ODST inspired him to write the book in such a way that had us re-reading it multiple times just to make sense of what was going on. It also helps that he’s been a long time Halo fan and, like the rest of us, really loves Buck.

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Between E3 and SDCC 2015, there’s been a lot of news around the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians, some of which has generated discussion amongst the Halo community. We tackle some of those issues in tonight’s episode with our thoughts on no split screen, no local/offline play, the no disc limited collector’s edition (which now has a trade in option), and the requisition system on if it’s too much like pay to win for Warzone. We would love to hear your thoughts on these issues and you can do so by posting in our forums or sending us a submission.

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When we were first introduced to Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck in Halo 3: ODST, we learned about his personality as an ODST and how good Nathan Fillion is at acting. In New Blood, we learn of Buck’s origin story: how he became an ODST, how he met up with Veronica Dare and how he eventually got recruited and joined the Spartan IV program. This all leads up to his role in the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians and there’s a lot of details in this novella. If you’ve read (or listened the) the book, you may have found yourself having to go through it multiple times. As we discuss the book, we try to demystify the bouncing around as much as possible and hit all the high points you’ll want to know before this October. Read More...

Halo brought Breakout to life in a real life scenario of the new game mode in Halo 5: Guardians. In conjunction with BoomCo and Stony Props, 343 brought the Spartan training simulation to life at SDCC. We had the opportunity to talk to some of the folks from Stony Props who made the Spartan training armor for the experience, which included a helmet and upper body armor pieces for both teams. We got to talk to Walter and Steve about the entire process of making the armor from when 343 Industries approached them to getting them made for game day.

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If you’re heading out to Austin, Texas in a few weeks for the Rooster Teeth Expo, our anniversary panel and reunion party won’t be the only exciting things to see. The folks over at Impact Props showed off one of their latest pieces of work today on their Facebook page being a Spartan Locke armor set. As you can see below, this thing is already impressive and in the comments, they mentioned it will be worn at RTX. We just hope Chief shows up too.

San Diego Comic Con is one of the largest fan-focused conventions in the United States and this year we were able to attend and see what the fuss was all about. We had the opportunity to play real life Breakout, see the Mega Bloks build of Apex, learn about the story supplementing Halo 5: Guardians from the novels and Hunt the Truth podcast, be surrounded by Halo cosplayers and snag some con exclusive swag. We managed to pick up interviews with Stony Props on their Spartan training armor and Matt Forbeck on New Blood that will be releasing later in the week. Huge thanks to Laird for giving us the opportunity to attend and for being our guest for this episode.

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Leading into last week’s San Diego Comic Con, 343 Industries released the Halo Channel app for iOS and Android. Those who downloaded the app and showed it on their mobile device at SDCC received a Halo 5: Guardians pin exclusive to the convention. After using the app, we’re happy to say that the interface has much better performance over it’s Windows 8 and Xbox One counterparts. You can catch up on the latest episodes of shows like The Bulletin, The Sprint, Breaking Down the Map and Community Creations over on the Halo Channel app.